Summer lyrics

In these lyrics, I explore a confluence of influences, especially the traditions of perception, self, and knowledge that come together in the Chinese poets translated by Hinton in Mountain Home AND the traditions of nature lyric in English. The Chinese couplet is especially significant to me. No doubt my tone is peculiar to myself. The titles indicate the name of the Chinese poet with whom I am engaged in a given poem; the number indicates the fact that these lyrics are the result of a second thinking-through of Hinton's presentation of these poets. These poems were written in Providence, Rhode Island. A new series was recently started in Portsmouth.

Chia Tao 2

Night pulses: the first cricket
of the summer. In a thicket

of pine and apple, white mist
concentrates, and the mind, kissed

as it contemplates differentiation,
breaks a sweat, which trickles down

into my beard. Transparency of
ambiguity of “work of love.”



Tu Mu 2

Golden duff, apple windfall, bronze needles.
Silence of footfall: mine or the black beetle’s?

Sound of raindrops stopped by the canopy.
In this emptiness, the presense of not-me,

cricket’s jeweled pulse, self’s dispossession:
only distances cross this ocean.


Mei 2


Down south on business. Whiskey haze
and crickets fill the nights till day’s

return to the road. Between cold calls
passing headlights smear the walls.

I reread Mei’s old poem on
when nature calls just before dawn.

At home up north crows light and light
again on the restaurant roof in sight

of garbage bins. The crash of empty
bottles in barrels makes them jumpy.